A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Banter Hall 2300 year old Book of the Dead

I was at the museum with a few friends and they have a 2300 year old 7m+ scroll on display called the 'Book of the Dead.' And what it is, is a collecting of spells and charms (written in hieroglyphics) that the ancient Egyptians said to ensure deceased ones would pass onto the afterlife. Amazingly, you can still see the colours of the illustrations!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=116313&id=611400806&l=ce5d39568f

"The ROM’s seven metre-long scroll is an ancient Egyptian funerary text dating back to 320 B.C., the early Ptolemaic period. Written on papyrus and containing four coloured vignettes and many elegant line drawings, the lavish and beautifully executed book was acquired in Egypt in the early 20th century. Its iconography suggests that it came from Thebes (modern Luxor) and was written for a wealthy man named Amen-em-hat. Though a section of the papyrus had been on display in the Egyptian gallery for many years, it was not until 2006 that Dr. Irmtraut Munro, the director of a project established at the University of Bonn in Germany to catalogue all world-wide Books of the Dead, recognized that a rolled up scroll in storage was part of the same text. The scroll was so delicate that its outer layer had fragmented into countless pieces. This lead to a lengthy conservation process to restore much of the book to its former splendour."

WOW Kenny that is something!!! awesome pictures!!

that's cool kenny. thank you for sharing. i'll be looking at it more.

That's really cool! I love ancient history stuff, don't have much of that here, we're an artsy city instead.

Very cool pictures I looked at all of them earlier tonight on FB,, Looks like you had a great time there, and a very interesting place as well!

My WHOLE family LOVES Ancient Egypt, so much so, that my son has EXACT copies of Egyptian Wall Art tattooed on his arms. My wife and I eagerly scan the TV everyday for any new shows about ancient Egypt and are DELIGHTED by the antics of Dr, Zahi Hawas. We have two Egyptian mummies on display here in Nashville, a human, and a cat. Even though I majored in Anthropology and Archeology in college, Egypt did NOT interest me at first, because I thought pretty much EVERYTHING there had been found, and they also kept such DETAILED personal accounts on LITERALLY every citizen of their empire, many of which are STILL perfectly preserved, that I thought there were no mysteries left. BOY WAS I WRONG! It now appears that 90% of the ancient Egyptian Empire has YET to be uncovered, and famous manuscripts long believed to be lost have been found in recently discovered tombs, including one famous long-lost manuscript of Homer, only fragments of which were known, until one COMPLETE copy was found buried with a Mummy in the last year. They NOW think they have discovered the tomb of Cleopatra and Marc Antony and are investigating further.

Mummy Cat (with feet of human Mummy showing)

Goodness, is this photo in the up and up, Thorny???

Yep. These are Actual Egyptian Mummies, THOUSANDS of years old, on display at the Tennessee State Museum here in Nashville. I have visited these two ALL my life. They are like old friends or family Members.

Here is a picture of the human Mummy. Not the best quality. I took it with my OLD point-and-shoot in poor lighting and they don't allow flash photography in there.

MUMMY DEAREST

On the mummy I saw, you could still see hair on its scalp, and toes pointing through the linen at its feet. I should've taken a picture but somehow I kept on thinking 'would i want someone to take a picture of me a couple thousand of years later' lol I did see an alligator mummy which looked more like a burnt wiener than an alligator lol

even with flash, my hands were shaky (like always :()

that's what both fascinates me and creeps me out about mummy's!

we used to have property up in west texas....deer hunting property. a guy that simi-lived there on the ranch had a mummy-fied cat (house cat) in his garage. he was always showing that thing off. it was super creepy, as was he.

again with the fascination and the creepyness!

I would LOVE for people to excavate and study my body in a couple of thousand years. I thought of having an ELABORATE tomb built for me, to give them something FUN to investigate!